


Xenophagy

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ceremonial Duel, Gen, Gen or Pre-Relationship, Insomnia, M/M, Mid-Canon, Millennium World, binge eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: Rishid finds Bakura in the ship’s small kitchen trying to eat his weight in feelings, and discovers these are uncertain times for the both of them.
Relationships: Bakura Ryou & Rishid Ishtar, Bakura Ryou/Rishid Ishtar
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Xenophagy

**Author's Note:**

> Regarding continuity with canon: This fic takes place during the boat ride travelling to the site of the ceremonial duel during season five of the anime, and it’s implied to take place directly after the events of a Millennium World arc that happened while the characters were in Egypt. But it makes specific reference to a manga-only scene from that arc, and uses the Darkside of Dimensions backstory for Ryou’s acquisition of the Ring (the sub version which is more flexible on the fate of Ryou’s father). I compiled some of the relevant screencaps [here](https://the-cryptographer.tumblr.com/post/621763434082615296/), if you’re interested.
> 
> Special thanks to rainstormcolors for looking this over and being my buddy to bounce ideas off of.
> 
> Read & Relax.

The night that they travelled to the Pharaoh's resting place, Rishid could not sleep. The moon drifted high in the sky, and Isis had shut him down.

“We will contemplate the place of our people once the Millennium Items have been reunited and the Pharaoh is at rest. Good night, Rishid.”

She spoke with finality, and a bit like she was cutting herself off as well. Rishid wondered if she was sleeping fitfully.

Three thousand years of tradition would come to a head tomorrow. And the position that Rishid had spent his life coveting – the one Malik had inherited and discarded, and Isis had taken up in his wake:

Head of the Tombkeepers, head of a three thousand year old dynasty, all had now come to a conclusion like a shut door.

If Isis had seen or planned anything beyond tomorrow, she had not seen fit to share it with him.

The air was dry, even on this ship over the water, leading them symbolically if not physically to the land of the dead.

Rishid’s throat was dry, and he stood toeing his feet into smooth sandals next to his bed.

He expected to find the ship’s kitchen vacant at this hour, but the lights were lit, buzzing under the power of the ship’s electric generator. There was a sound of scraping plates and clinking silverware. And when Rishid entered the kitchen, the boy sitting there did not turn to him, occupied as he was with the pasta, steak, and ice cream all set out in front of him like a banquet.

Rishid felt himself waver self-consciously, but he assured himself there was no reason to be nervous.

He opened the fridge, and thumbed the labels on the bottles at the door before pulling out some carbonated water.

The table the boy, Bakura, was sitting at was the only one in the ship’s small kitchen. It was mounted to the floor, along with the four barstools positioned one on each side. Rishid hesitated for a moment before walking around to seat opposite Bakura, balancing against the rock of the ship. He gestured, asking silently for permission to sit. And Bakura startled, almost choking on his food in the hurry to offer his assent.

“Of course! Please have a seat!” he insisted, in Japanese.

Bakura flustered further, and said something in another language. English it seemed.

At Rishid’s blank look, he tried once again.

“Please have a seat!” he repeated, in French this time. “There’s more than enough food. Help yourself to anything!” He turned red and squawked. “Not that you need my permission, I suppose...”

Rishid’s French was only marginally better than his Japanese, so-

“Your native language is fine,” he replied in Japanese, as he took a seat across from Bakura.

“Oh, of course,” Bakura recovered himself, following the language shift back. He shuffled his cutlery in his hand for a moment, before twirling his fork to collect another mound of spaghetti to swallow whole.

Rishid watched the grotesquerie of it for a moment, before deciding he should attempt to engage in some small talk. “Are you enjoying your trip? Yuugi and Jounouchi and the others seemed excited to be sightseeing.” The unspoken part of this was that Bakura seemed far less so.

An apologetic smile seemed to ghost across Bakura’s face as he wiped some sauce from his lip. “Well, I’ve been here before,” he said. And then blinked anxiously. “Not that it’s not a beautiful country. Your country, I mean. Your home… yes…”

Rishid was not sure it was his country, his home. The part of the world that was his was a collection of dark underground corridors and crypts. He was not sure he had a claim to Cairo, or Luxor, or any of the other places he had taken the others the day before.

“Hopefully tomorrow will be more novel,” Rishid offered. “The place we’re going is not one the public has access to.”

“Oh, no, I’ve been there too,” Bakura disagreed. “The resting place for the Millennium Stone…”

Rishid found this unlikely. And had only just made the decision not to openly question it, when Bakura ducked his head down over the table, so his hair dipped a bit into his ice cream.

The tip of the fork dragged over the porcelin, drawing swirling patterns in the dish where it wiped away the pasta. Rishid watched it as it dragged lethargically from one side of the plate to the other.

Then Bakura took two shuddering breaths and burst quite animatedly into tears.

Rishid was at his feet and at Bakura’s side before he even thought about it. Which left him hovering awkwardly over his shoulder. Bakura had seemed for a moment very like Malik. But he was not Malik, and Rishid was not sure how this person, someone nearly into adulthood, would feel about a near stranger attempting to embrace and comfort them.

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” Bakura lifted his hand up and waved it limply, as if trying to ward Rishid off. But it was undermined by the way his index finger fell to rest lightly on Rishid’s sleeve. Bakura took a couple of deep breaths, bit his lip, and composed himself just as quickly as he’d fallen apart. “This is terribly embarrassing. I’m so sorry.”

Rishid was unsure what to say, if he should say anything at all, or simply retreat away. But when the ship lurched on its path through the water, Bakura proved more off balance than he was. Bakura swayed to the side, and clenched his hand around Rishid’s forearm for a moment, before he realised how hard he was gripping and flinched away apologetically.

Rishid caught his hand, rearranged it so it gripped more steadily against the horizontal plane of his forearm, and braced himself against the table.

Bakura seemed flushed and mortified, but held on. He was swaying a bit, Rishid noticed, even where the waters were calm.

“The Millennium Stone and the Door – it is a place only for Tombkeepers,” Rishid said. Because he had to say something, and these were the first words he could manage to grasp.

“It is,” Bakura agreed. “We didn’t belong there. Though I don’t think my father cared too much. He’s a museum curator, but you’ve probably heard a lot of other words for people like him.”

 _Grave robber, body snatcher, corpse monger, cast forever from Ra’s light into the shadows._ Yes, Rishid had heard them all, and listened with an amount of weary disinterest. It was hard to be offended when someone was stealing what your own had always denied you.

“But it’s still a place that’s mine,” Bakura asserted. “It has significance to me for some reason… I mean, I know the reason,” Bakura let go of Rishid’s arm, sliced into a piece of steak, and chewed it slowly, pointedly. And when he was done- “It’s the first place I killed someone,” he said ominously.

For a great number of years, Rishid had every day walked past the spot where Malik had stabbed their father to death. Malik, now that they were back home, slept in the same bed where Rishid had once raised a knife against him. There were other instances throughout the years, moments with vengeful gods and even more vengeful confrontations between his two siblings and their retainers. And Rishid also remembered the Other Bakura, who had stalked around another ship at night. All dark looks, trembling limbs, and a bloody gash up his arm he’d put there himself. Because as little as he’d cared for anyone else, he cared about himself even less.

“If you’re trying to scare me off, I’m afraid you’ll have to try a little harder.” Rishid spoke as softly as he could. “Maybe if you could say it without crying.”

Bakura blinked rapidly. “Drats!” He reached up as if to stuff his palms in his eye sockets. “I’m such a mess. This is the worst.”

Rishid wondered if he was simply intruding. “If you’d like me to leave-”

“You don’t have to,” Bakura protested, between a rapid series of sniffles. “I mean, if you don’t want to.”

Rishid leaned against the table and waited.

“I think he was a Tombkeeper,” Bakura said. “Shadi Shin. Though death didn’t seem to take well to him.”

“I’ve met him,” Rishid said. It was the only remotely positive thing Rishid could think to say about Shadi.

Bakura nodded. “He had a bunch of children. Of all the people who lost their father that night, it should have been me. But I don’t know what I would have done if Father hadn’t woken up. I was a child stranded in a foreign country without anyone else. Maybe the authorities would have taken me in eventually. Or other Tombkeepers, if they didn’t kill me first. I would have led a very different life, at the very least.” Bakura tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, and unearthed a spoonful of ice cream from his bowl. “Although I guess I led a very different life from that night on anyhow. The Ring was with me.”

Rishid watched as Bakura spun spaghetti around his plate. He swiftly cleared it.

“The other you – he is gone?”

“I’m not even sure he was another me,” Bakura said quietly. “Instead of all the ugly parts I could keep a lid on, so long as The Object wasn’t there.” He scraped the plate, and caught bits of meat and tomato at its rim. “He was wearing a disguise – Shadi – to make himself look fat and feckless. But I knew it was him, even before I saw him transform during the Great Game. He had the scales after all.” Bakura stuffed himself with another cut of steak. “He weighed my soul against Maat’s feather, and I was hurt, even though I knew it would be too heavy. And Honda and Yuugi and Anzu and Jounouchi just watched him send me away. I really hated him, for revealing me like that. For a moment I was glad I had killed him.”

Rishid considered this for a moment, as Bakura picked up the T-bone left from his steak, and chewed at the gristle.

“I was glad when Malik killed our father.” Rishid said it simply in an attempt to empathise. But now that he’d said it, it occurred to him it was probably something he’d never shared with anyone before. It was not a sentiment that would be appreciated by Malik and Isis, who continued to love their father in spite of everything. But for Rishid their father’s death had been a moment of love and freedom. No matter what Malik attempted later, he had chosen Rishid over his father in that moment. And no matter how bad Malik got, he could never incite that full, single-minded terror Rishid had felt cowering at Master Ishtar’s feet.

Bakura nearly choked on the T-bone, and then his cough turned into a little laugh. “You’re so tight lipped and then you drop something like that,” he ribbed. “I suppose you’re the one trying to scare me off now.” Bakura gave a weak smile. “You’ll also have to try a little harder.”

Rishid felt embarrassment colour his cheeks. But not enough to squash the oddly light feeling left by having unburdened himself this admission.

“You’re a really good listener. Has anyone ever told you that?” Bakura asked.

Rishid could not recall. He supposed someone might have heard it from someone in passing. But never from Malik, or Isis, or even Jounouchi or Yuugi. Never in a context he might have been able to absorb it.

“I’m sorry to just come out with all of this,” Bakura apologised. “I don’t suppose you even understand half of the things I’ve said. I haven’t really been making that much sense.”

Rishid considered this. “No,” he agreed. “But it’s okay. We’ve all struggled with magic and darkness and fear. I am glad I could listen.”

“Thank you,” Bakura whispered.

Bakura scooped the last of a watery puddle of ice cream into his spoon, chased it with a bowl of green salad, and then finally stacked the empty dishes one on top of the other. By the time he was done, he was in tears again.

“I just- I hated him – the Spirit. He was cruel and horrible, and made me do all these awful things, and chased away all my friends. I hate him. But I don’t know what to do without him!” Bakura sniffled. “What am I even doing here, revisiting that awful crypt?! Will I not believe he’s gone until they return the Ring to the Stone? Or am I just here to prove to Honda and Yuugi and the others that I’m on their side, that I’m good now, and that we’re friends. But we’re not really. We pretend, but I just keep smiling in front of Honda and Yuugi because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to apologise, even if I wanted to.”

Rishid thought Bakura was selling his companions a bit short, but it probably would not help to say so. He focussed on the part he might be able to- “Will you be okay tomorrow? I’m afraid I can’t turn the boat back around now, but something can probably be arranged.”

“I do want to be there,” Bakura retorted. “I mean, I don’t. But I can’t miss it. Whether I’ll be okay or not.”

“Sometimes we have to struggle through things,” Rishid agreed.

Bakura nodded. “I haven’t been able to sleep.”

They sat another moment, before a short laugh erupted from Bakura’s throat.

“Do you know I don’t have a return ticket?” he chuckled. “I- We didn’t buy one. I think he really thought it was going to be the end of the world, and that we wouldn’t need one. He didn’t have any plans after this.” Bakura’s voice cracked. “Neither of us did.”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” Rishid offered. “You will be in good company. None of us have any plans either.” And if Isis had a problem with him offering their resources to outsiders, she could have the displeasure of disappointing Bakura herself.

Bakura huffed another laugh through tears. “So I might join the Tombkeepers after all?” he asked. “Just a decade late?”

“No,” Rishid looked down at his hands. “There likely won’t be any Tombkeepers, after tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry then,” Bakura’s face turned solemn again. “The Spirit of the Ring didn’t get what he wanted. But it doesn’t feel like it. It really does feel like tomorrow will be the end of everything. It feels like my life is over.”

Rishid felt that way too but- “I think our lives might only just be beginning.”

Bakura nodded. His stomach grumbled, and he covered a burp with his hand. “I can’t sleep,” he said.

Rishid couldn’t either. “I’ll make us some sahlab.”

It came out thin and watery, since the only way to make it warm enough was to dilute with water from the electric kettle. But it would probably soothe Bakura’s stomach better that way.

Bakura accepted his cup with a half-hearted smile. The damp smell of the ship’s kitchen transformed slowly to that of warm cinnamon. Rishid clutched his own cup and let his own fears come and go.

They sat. They struggled through it. And when Bakura rocked with the ship into his side, he let Rishid put an arm around his shoulder and comfort him.


End file.
